'Terminator: Genisys' Writers Sign First-Look Deal With Skydance

Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier will also consult on the company's many projects

Skydance Productions has signed Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, the writers behind the company’s big-budget franchise reboot Terminator: Genisys, to a first-look deal.

The two-year deal also includes a consulting aspect to it and will tie the writer-producers into various streams of the company’s content business.

The first-look deal extends to all theatrical and digital projects the duo develop. The consultancy concerns an overall look at the company’s projects.

“Laeta and Patrick are first-class storytellers and world builders,” said Skydance CEO David Ellison in a statement. “The work they have done to help us create the new Terminator trilogy is simply phenomenal and is only the beginning of the stories we are going to tell together. I am honored to welcome them into the Skydance family.”

Ellison likens the deal to that of an old Hollywood studio model, when writers were under contract to one company and could be brought in on any project at any time.

Kalogridis wrote such movies as Oliver Stone’s Alexander and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and was involved in James Cameron’s Avatar.

Lussier comes from the world of horror, with movies such as My Bloody Valentine and Drive Angry under his belt.

The two teamed up in 2012 to write an original sci-fi adventure movie for Skydance, which initiated the idea. While that project got stuck in development, Skydance liked their work enough to hire them to write Genisys. Kalogridis and Lussier consulted on Mission: Impossible 5, currently in production, and Lussier worked on the creative development of the mobile game, which will be released alongside the film next summer.

Skydance is currently in production on Geostorm, an environmental disaster movie starring Gerard Butler, and will next move to Star Trek 3.

Kalogridis is repped by WME, Gerber & Co and Katz Golden. Lussier is repped by WME and McKuin Frankel.